


Negative Space Impressionism

by aformofmotion



Series: The Length of Time Between Stars [1]
Category: due South
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 20:47:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,475
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2202537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aformofmotion/pseuds/aformofmotion
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Fraser is gone, and it’s up to the two of them to find him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Negative Space Impressionism

“Fraser’s gone,” said the voice on the other end of the line.

He nearly dropped the phone. There was no need to ask who it was; only one person he knew would ever sound quite that ragged saying those words.

" _What?_ " he asked, and it was fucking miracle his voice stayed in the right octave.

"Yeah," Kowalski said shakily. "He's just... he was right there and then-"

"Where are you?" Vecchio asked, slipping from laid back Chicago cop mode into serious Chicago cop mode in about three seconds flat.

"At the airport. Dief's still in quarantine, I have to go-"

"Oh, no, you don't. You're not going anywhere until I get there, you got it? We'll go pick the mutt up together."

"Okay."

Vecchio didn't know Kowalski very well, but even he could tell that easy aquiesance wasn't a good sign.

"I'll be there in twenty minutes." He hung up before Kowalski could reply.

"Hey!" Dewey protested when he snagged a pretzel off his desk on the way out. He waved a half-assed apology over his shoulder and didn't slow down at all.

It actually only took him ten minutes to get to the airport, driving with a lead foot and no regard for traffic. He spent all ten of those minutes trying not to think about what Kowalski had meant by  _gone_. Which was about as effective as trying not to think about pink elephants.

Gone did not mean dead,  _could not_ mean dead. If he'd meant dead, Kowalski would have said dead, and he didn't. And there was no  _way_ Fraser would have copped it up there in the snowy white wilderness. No fucking way, he lived for that sort of thing. Even if he had -- and he  _hadn't_ , please, god, he hadn't -- Ray would know. He'd  _feel_ it.

Which meant that gone meant something far worse than dead. Gone meant gone. Vanished.  _Missing_.

Kowalski was sitting on the curb when he pulled up, he didn't even have to find a parking space and go find him. And he looked _terrible_.

He looked so miserable that Vecchio, who hated him a little bit, felt sorry for him.

"Get in," he said, his already firm grip on the steering wheel tightening just a bit more. He peeled away from the airport and headed toward where Dief was quarantined, waiting for the other man to speak up. "You gonna tell me what happened or what?"

"After we get Dief," Kowalski said. "I don't want to have to do it twice."

Vecchio nodded and they made the rest of the trip in tense silence. When they got to the quarantine he fed Dief the pretzel he'd lifted from Dewey while Kowalski filled out the paperwork and talked to the guy. It all took less than five minutes and they were on the road again.

"Okay, now talk," he said gruffly.

Kowalski nodded. "Okay, yeah, all right. We just got off the plane."

He explained to Vecchio about their return from Canada and helping a strange woman stop a conspiracy of time saving devices, which Vecchio took with a lot more grace than anyone else would have. By the time he got to the strange light that came from around the corner Fraser had turned, Vecchio was pulling up in front of his house.

"What are we doing here?" Kowalski asked.

Vecchio gave him a look. "What, you think I'm sticking you in some hotel and let you stew all by yourself? We got a guest room, grab your stuff." He lead Kowalski upstairs. "When your landlord decided you weren't coming back, Ma snatched up your stuff and stuck it in the basement. You can bring it up if you want."

He thought he was being quite generous, but Kowalski didn't seem to notice, he just nodded and put his bags in the corner of the guest room. "Thanks."

"Yeah." He turned to go.

"Where you going?"

"Back to the airport to look for clues. Stay here," he added when Kowalski moved to follow him. "We can compare notes later, when you're not so useless."

"I'm not-"

"Yes, you are. You're in shock or something, it's fine." He waved his hand. "Get settled, let Ma know you're here. Try not to worry Frannie. I don't care, but stay here. I'm not coming looking for you if you take off."

"I got it," he said resentfully.

"Good. And call the station while you're at it. Tell the chief you're back."

Kowalski glared at him, so he backed out of the room without giving any of his other suggestions.

 

When the shock wore off Kowalski was actually pretty helpful and even sort of a decent guy if Vecchio ignored how damn irritating he could be. He could almost get over his initial hatred of the guy. It was mostly irrational anyway -- not Kowalski's fault he took over his life and everyone loved him, even Fraser. Or that they met in, like, the worst way possible. Which didn't make it any easier to like him, but it did damp down the urge to shoot him.

By the third day, they'd hashed and rehashed the available facts until he was afraid they'd start running in circles if they went over them anymore. By the fourth, he was sick of waiting for Kowalski to spill his guts.

Like he couldn't tell Kowalski wasn't telling him the whole story?

"You're hiding something," he said. "You can't be hiding things from me, Kowalski. Not if you want this working together thing to actually work out. Come on, what aren'tcha telling me?"

"All right," Kowalski said slowly. Not like he was hesitant or anything, but like he really wanted to make sure he got all the words right. Vecchio waited him out. "When we first got back, Fraser wasn't sure if he was gonna stay or not. Like, he was just making sure I got back all right, he hadn't decided if he was gonna stay at the consulate and liase or go back up to Canada and hang out with Maggie."

"Maggie?"

"His half-sister." His hands fluttered like he wanted to be using them. "She lives up there. It's not important."

"Right," Vecchio said. "Go on."

"Well, when things started getting really crazy I had some time to think about it. And, you know, it'd be kinda weird around here without Fraser, right?"

Vecchio nodded in agreement.

"Right. And then there's me, and other than with Fraser I've been you for two years. Haven't figured out how to be just _me_ yet. And, yeah, I know that ain't healthy. But I wanna keep Fraser around, maybe more than a little bit. I'm not explaining this well."

"I don't know where you're going, but I'm with you so far," Vecchio offered.

"That's comforting. But the thing is. I mean. Right. The thing is... I love the guy, right? And not in what you'd call a brotherly way."

Vecchio worked hard to cover his surprise. Okay, yeah, he'd got that vibe off Kowalski, but he wasn't gonna _say_ nothing about it, and he sure as hell hadn't expected Kowalski himself to. That was the kind of thing you just didn't talk about, especially if you were a cop. But apparently Kowalski trusted him a lot more than he would have trusted Kowalski if they'd been in each others shoes. It was sort of impressive, the matter of fact way he talked about it.

He almost opened his mouth to take a crack, but changed his mind at the last second. No need to be crass, and it wasn't like he had a _problem_ with it. When he didn't have a fit or whatever Kowalski had been expecting, the guy relaxed a fraction and continued.

"And I figured all that out in about thirty seconds, hadn't even realized it before aside from a few stray thoughts when we were all alone up north. But there was this moment, see, where I'd figured it out and the creepy-crawlies were just about to find our hiding spot and Fraser wouldn't shut up about some philosophy-and-time thing."

Vecchio chuckled, remembering that same sort of scenario.

"Yeah. And so then I maybe panicked a little bit - okay, a lot - and then I kissed him. Which was crazy, I know, I still don't know what I was thinking."

He stopped and looked at Vecchio like he was waiting for something - permission, maybe, or absolution.

Vecchio was pretty sure his eyes were about ready to pop out of his head. "Christ," he said quietly.

"And Fraser... he kissed me back. And, you know what, I could see in his eyes that he _got it_. I didn't have to explain anything. But I did anyway, because I'm a blabber mouth and I can't help it. So we talked it over after the whole danger thing was over, and he decided to stay." He looked away, for the first time since he started, like this part was too personal but the rest of it wasn't. "We were gonna get a place. We weren't... gonna tell anybody or anything, but nobody'd think twice about us getting a place together, and we were gonna give it a shot, you know? We were gonna..."

"I got it," Vecchio said, not unkindly.

"And then he walked around the corner and there was the light and he was gone." They were back on familiar ground again. "I looked around a bit and then I called you."

"Why?" Vecchio asked, looking for a question that would keep them on safe terms, at least until he'd had time to process all that.

"Why what?"

"Why _me?_ Why not Welsh? You two are pretty chummy, and he likes Fraser just fine."

"Yeah, but not like we do."

_We._ Like there was no doubt that they liked Fraser the same way, even after all that talk about kissing and not-brotherly love.  
He was going to deny it, had his mouth opened and everything, but he couldn't get the words to come out. After half a minute of trying to force the lie out, he gave up. "Pass me that file."

Kowalski passed the file in silence.

 

By the end of the week, with no new leads, Welsh ordered them back to work. They protested, of course, but Vecchio couldn't really blame him.

"Course I don't want you to forget about it," Welsh said, looking at Kowalski like he was crazy. Which, Vecchio reflected, might not have been too far from the truth. "But at this point you're just wasting time and resources. For all we know, the Mountie saw a kitten up a tree and ran off to help."

"He wouldn't just _leave-_ "

"Kowalski," Vecchio snapped warningly, seeing a dozen ways the conversation could go pearshaped, starting with Kowalski ending that sentence in an incriminating fashion. Kowalski glared, but he got it and shut up. "Does up and disappearing for a week sound like something Fraser would do?"

"It does not," Welsh said. "But that doesn't mean he didn't. I'm not saying drop it, but work it on your own time. Between the two of you there's a pile of unsolved cases up to my neck. Try solving some of them.  _Now_ ," he added when they didn't immediately move, shooing them out of his office.

The first three cases were pretty much open and shut, they barely had to work together at all. But the fourth... the fourth was one of those cases Fraser could have solved with a snap of his fingers (and a bit less exaggeration), but it took the two of them days to even figure out who the perp was.

And then he ran.

"Crap!" Kowalski yelled, immediately taking up the chase. "I got left."

Vecchio went right, but they ended up stumbling to a stop at the same dock, watching the guy row away really quickly.

"Fraser woulda jumped," Kowalski said.

Vecchio nodded in agreement. "So jump."

"What, why me? You jump."

"Nuh-uh, it was your idea."

"Chicken."

"He's getting away, you really wanna start this now?"

"Fine. We both jump?"

"Fine."

Afterward, dripping all over the sidewalk with the perp cuffed to a post while they waited for a cab -- because neither of them was going to let the guy drench their upholstery -- Vecchio looked at Kowalski sideways.

"Why didn't you just say you couldn't swim?"

"Hey, I can so swim."

"Badly."

"Fraser taught me."

"Figures." He rolled his eyes. "You remember when I said this wouldn't work if you were keeping things from me? That's one of those things I shoulda known."

"Excuse me for not wanting to hand out a list of my shortcomings."

"How am I supposed to have your back if I don't know these things?" He shoved Kowalski hard enough to make him stumble.

Kowalski shoved him back. "I don't see  _you_ opening up and sharing."

"Maybe I don't have anything to share."

"Maybe you're full of crap."

"Oh yeah? Maybe you wanna punch my lights out and be done with it?"

He watched something go over Kowalski, some shudder of recognition, some memory of a similiar scenario, and then the guy nodded.

"Yeah, all right," he said. "Let's get it over with. On three we deck each other and move on."

 

"Looks like he got you good," Huey said when they dragged the perp into the station.

"Oh, no, I didn't hit a cop, man," he said. "I would never, I ain't stupid. They did that to each other, craziest thing I ever saw."

Welsh gave them a look while Huey and Dewey lead the perp off.

"Working through our issues, sir," Kowalski offered.

Vecchio nodded. "What he said."

"I trust this particular issue won't come up again," Welsh said after a minute.

"Oh, yeah, we're over it," Kowalski said. "One time thing."

"Good. Get out of my station, you're dripping on everything."

Frannie, of course, had a lot more to say about it.

"I don't know which one of you is more stupid," she tutted, shoving ice packs into their faces.

"He is," they both said, pointing.

"All right, maybe we're the same amount of stupid," Vecchio admitted. "But that doesn't make it a bad idea."

"It was a _terrible_ idea! I mean, really, hitting each other? Not all problems can be solved by violence, you know-"

"This one could," he said. "We're good."

Kowalski nodded, then winced when it jostled the icepack on his eye. "Yeah."

She looked at them sternly. "I don't care if it worked. You look terrible..." Vecchio figured they must have tuned her out at the same time, because they both jumped when she said, "Fine, whatever," and slammed the door to her room. "Don't listen to me, it's not like I'm trying to _help_ or anything!"

 

He was soundly asleep when Dief started to scratch on his door and whine. It was just enough to wake him up without waking Frannie across the hall. He managed to get out of the bed without causing himself grievous harm, and stumbled over without falling down. It was way too early to be awake.

"What?" he whispered, opening the door a crack. "You can't have to go out again."

Dief just gave him a look and whined again, then turned around and trotted away.

Vecchio sighed and followed him. "Following a wolf around my own house," he muttered.

Dief led him to Kowalski's room and put his paw on the door, cocking his head. He still spoke enough wolf to know what that meant; he listened.

Kowalski was muttering in his sleep, tossing and turning in the throes of what was obviously a nightmare. A few seconds passed and he shouted loudly enough to be heard clearly.

"Crap," Vecchio said quietly. Dief kept looking at him. "I know, I know."

He pushed the door open slowly and then pushed it closed behind him. His eyes had adjusted to the dark and so he had no problem navigating the room.

"Kowalski," he said, louder than a whisper but not by much. Kowalski didn't respond, his hands remaining twisted in the sheets and a stricken look frozen on his face. He hadn't even decided if he liked the guy yet and that look made his heart clench. "Hey, Kowlaski."

Still nothing.

"I'm gonna start shaking you if you don't wake up," he warned. He gave Kowalski a couple seconds to respond, then followed through.

Kowalski's eyes popped open and he tensed up, staring at Vecchio like a deer caught in headlights. "Wha-  _Vecchio?_ What's going on?"

He rolled his eyes. "What's going on is you're tossing and turning so much that Dief came and dragged me outta bed in the middle of the night to make sure you're okay."

"Sorry," Kowalski looked away. "You can go back to bed now."

He probably should have, but something made him hesitate. "Are you okay?"

For a minute he thought Kowalski wouldn't answer, but then he started talking. "I was drowning. I was back on the _Henry Allen_ , only Fraser wasn't there to grab me and drag me out."

"Geez." He sat down on the edge of the bed. "Come here."

Kowalski looked at him funny.

"I used to do this for Frannie when we were little, just do it."

Kowalski huffed and scooted over. "Fine. Now what?"

"Way to be grateful," he muttered. He pulled Kowalski to him and held him like he used to hold Frannie, tucked up against his chest and safe. After a second, Kowalski started to relax and he managed to convince his brain that this wasn't the most awkward thing he'd ever done. "Now you close your eyes and pretend I'm Fraser."

Kowalski tipped his head to look up at him, but he didn't make any move to pull away. "This is ridiculous."

He shrugged. "For Frannie it was dad she wanted to put her back to sleep. I thought you'd want Fraser, but hey, I could be wrong. It could be your ex-wife or whatever. Doesn't matter to me."

"Not Stella," he mumbled, settling back against him. After about ten minutes he was sound asleep. Vecchio eased him onto the pillow and pulled the blanket up to cover him, then slipped out of the room.

"I don't want to hear it," he told Dief, pointing. "I'm going back to bed."

 

It happened twice more and then it stopped. Either Kowalski stopped having nightmares or he learned to keep them quiet. Whichever it was, Dief quit waking him up and Vecchio put the incidents out of his mind.

"Got something for you," Dewey said, dropping a file onto his desk.

"What is it?" he asked, not bothering to look up.

"Some girl that disappeared. Sounds like the same thing that got the Mountie, with the lights and everything."

His head snapped up and he grabbed the file.

"Thought you'd be interested," Dewey said smugly, walking away.

Vecchio waved distractedly, flipping hurriedly through the file. There wasn't a lot, but it did look like the same MO.

"Kowalski!" he called, heading for the door.

By the time they knocked on the door of the victim's home, Kowalski was nearly vibrating in place with poorly suppressed energy.

"Would you relax?" Vecchio snapped. "You're making me all jittery."

"Sorry, I can't help it."

"You're bouncing," he said pointedly. "Knock it off."

"I told you, I can't help it."

The door opened before they could get any futher, revealing a big guy in his mid-thirties. "Yeah?" he grunted. "Whadda you want?"

"Detectives Vecchio and Kowalski, Chicago PD."

"You're here about Molly."

"That's right. Got a second?"

He shrugged. "I wasn't home when it happened." He turned his head. "Amanda! The police wanna talk to you! About Molly!"

They could hear the sound of someone walking down stairs.

"Come on in," the man said, moving out of the way to let them through.

The woman who came down the stairs couldn't have been more different from her husband if she tried. Where he was short and fat, she was tall and thin. He was blond and blue eyed, she had black hair and brown eyes. He had three chins, she had cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass.

"Whoa," Kowalski said under his breath.

"Can it." He offered the woman his hand. "Hello, Mrs. Printi."

"It's Amanda," she said, her tone somehow managing to convey that this wasn't because she wanted to be on more familiar terms but because she didn't want to be called by her husband's name.

"Ray," he said anyway. "We want to talk to you about your daughter's disappearance."

"And you'll want to see the room," she said, nodding. "I'll talk to you, and Carl will take your partner upstairs."

It was actually exactly like Fraser's case, except that instead of walking around a corner, the twelve year old victim had been on the phone in her room. Amanda had seen the weird lights under the door and when she got it open Molly was gone. No evidence, anywhere, of anything.

By the time they got out of there Kowalski's nervous energy had become something far less managable. He was shaking so hard that Vecchio could see it even in his peripheral vision. That wasn't worrying or anything. It had pretty much stopped when Vecchio pulled up in front of the house, Kowalski withdrawn so far into himself he didn't seem to register that they'd arrived.

Vecchio snapped his fingers in front of his face. "Hey, Kowalski. Earth to Kowalski."

"Huh?" he asked.

"Don't huh me, get out of the car."

"Oh, sorry." He shuffled into the house like a zombie and disappeared into his room.

 

They had the next day off and Kowalski didn't come out of his room all day.

"I hope he's okay," Frannie said after dinner. "Maybe I should go check on him."

"No," he said sharply. "It's this case, Frannie, that's all."

Frannie threw her towel onto the counter. "God, Ray, you aren't the only ones who miss Fraser, you know!" She looked like she was about to say more, but then surprisingly she just gave him a look -- a frighteningly knowing, sympathetic look -- and stalked out of the kitchen.

When he went upstairs he found Kowalski sitting on the bed, staring at nothing. He didn't look like he'd moved in a while.

"I think Frannie knows," he said, setting a plate of leftovers on the bedside table. "About you and Fraser and..."

"You."

"Yeah." He peered at Kowalski closely. "You okay? You're looking a little bit..." 

Without thinking about it he reached out and pressed his hand to Kowalski's forehead, checking for fever.

That little bit of physical contact broke through whatever barrier he had up and between one second and the next Vecchio found himself sitting on the bed with a shaking Kowalski sprawled across his lap, clinging like he was going to fall off the Earth. It was more blind panic than anything else, and the fact that he was pretty sure Kowalski had no idea what he was doing was Vecchio's justification for not punching him in the head when the guy kissed him. (That, and it was actually kind of nice, Kowalski's lips were softer than he would have expected, and he _was not_ going to think about that.)

"You don't kiss like Fraser," Kowalski mumbled later.

The first thing that popped into his head was "How does Fraser kiss?" but he managed to not say it out loud. He wasn't a masochist and that was not a conversation they needed to have. What he said instead was, "We'll find him."

And he kept saying it until Kowalski stopped freaking out.

 

In the middle of the week a ransom note for Molly Printi arrived, but a tense few days of negotiation revealed something worse than a kidnapping: the ransomers never had the girl. They worked for the wife, who had seen an opportunity to divorce her husband and still get the money denied her by their pre-nup.

Neither of them were taking it well -- raging around the station kicking things and cussing and avoiding each other because God knows what would happen if they tried to talk -- and after about an hour of this, and doubtless numerous complaints from officers who weren't even Huey and Dewey, Welsh called them into his office.

"I know this case hasn't been an easy one," he started, and that was as far as he got before Kowalski started yelling. Welsh put up with it for about half a minute, and then he gave Vecchio this look.

This really, really familiar look that said  _Vecchio, your partner's being crazy, do something about it_.

Vecchio froze, staring.

Kowalski must have recognized the look, too, because his diatribe stuttered to a halt and he just stood there looking like Vecchio didn't know what. Something bad.

"Sir-"

"You're useless to me like this," Welsh said briskly. "Get out of my station. Go home. Both of you."

Vecchio nodded and grabbed Kowalski by the shoulder and pushed him out of the station.

"You saw that, right?" Kowalski asked. "The, uh-"

"I saw." He pressed his palms against his eyelids. "Was that the weirdest thing ever or what?"

Kowalski laughed, a high-pitched near-hysterical sound. "Yeah. Yeah, completely bizarre."

 

Thank god for Frannie's obsession with the orphans. She and Ma Vecchio were nowhere near the house when they got home, wired and jittery.

Afterwards, Vecchio wasn't quite sure what had happened. One second he was telling Kowalski off for punching the wall and the next he had the guy pressed up against said wall, kissing him like he needed it to live. Something in his chest gave a little bit when Kowalski started kissing him back, something that felt suspiciously like relief.

It was so damn _good_ it took his brain a second to catch up to what was going on. Then he tore himself away and stumbled back, breathing hard.

"What the _hell_ just happened?" Kowalski asked, sounding just as stunned as Vecchio felt.

"Got me." He shook his head, like that was going to help, then looked up to meet Kowalski's eyes. Geez. If he looked anywhere near as scared as he did, they were in serious trouble. "Stress relief?"

Kowalski barked out another one of those broken sounding laughs, and then his eyes twitched toward the stairs. Toward his room and the nights they've carefully never spoken of.

They're on the same page, then. Speaking the same language, or non-language, as they case may be.

"Same deal," Vecchio offered.

Kowalski nodded jerkily. "Goes both ways."

It was viscious, more desperation than anything else, and between them they lasted about ten minutes, but afterward everything was still again.

 

It didn't happen again for months. Things actually slipped into a routine that was almost normal. Or, at least, that _looked_ almost normal from the outside.

The case was a pretty simple one. Easy. Nothing special about it until the idiot suspect took off running, got a head start, and went right over the edge of the fire escape. And Vecchio followed him.

He never would have done it if he hadn't been running on two days with no sleep. But it wasn't that far a drop, and he didn't have time to wait for Kowalski to catch up, and he was still Fraser-trained - it never wore off.

So he called "Take the stairs!" over his shoulder and jumped, and didn't even think about it until after uniforms dragged the guy off and Kowalski cornered him in the alley on the walk back to the car. He was coming down off the adrenaline rush and didn't even see it coming when he was shoved into the side of the building and held there, Kowalski's fist bunching the fabric of his suit in ways he should have found irritating but didn't.

"Don't you ever do that again." he said, voice soft and intense. "Don't you _ever_ \- You coulda _died_."

"Didn't know you cared," he quipped, mouth on autopilot, and internally winced.

Kowalski stared at him, a stare that was part anger and part fear and part something Vecchio couldn't place. For the first time he noticed the tremble in Kowalski's hands. "I already lost one partner," he said, still in that weird soft voice. "You think I want to lose another? I can't- You can't go around doing things like that. Not things like-"

"-Fraser does," they said together.

Vecchio stared, feeling something close to shock. Of course it was about Fraser, it was always about Fraser, but this time it wasn't  _just_ about Fraser. That was new, and important, and one of the scariest things he'd ever realized.

"Sorry," he said roughly, forcing the words out past the revelation.

Kowalski's grip on his suit tightened. "You can't do it again, okay? You gotta promise."

He nodded and reached out blindly, dragging Kowalski into a kiss - a harsher, more intimate agreement than any handshake. When he was sure Kowalski got the point he pulled away, letting his head thump back against the wall. "Okay?"

"Okay," Kowalski said.

 

"How much have you had?" Vecchio asked, hopping up on the barstool next to Kowalski.

"Not enough," he slurred into the table. Then he lifted his head and peered at Vecchio curiously, eyes wildly unfocused. "Vecchio? What... you doin' here?"

"Well that's a good question, seeing as I was sitting down in front of the tv a few minutes ago." He jerked his thumb at the bartender. "Your buddy there called the house, you're lucky I got it insteada Ma. Or Frannie, god forbid."

Kowalski stared at him like he didn't know what words were.

"Funny thing," he continued conversationally. "He seems to think you're _me_."

"Oh! Yeah, right. He trieda cut me off an' I told 'im uh-uh, no way, I'm a cop. And then... then he asked for my name an' I couldn' remember who I was supposed to be." He dropped his head back onto the bar.

"I'm gonna give you so much hell about this later," he said. "Come on, get up." He manhandled Kowalski into the backseat. "You puke in my car, you're walking home, you got that?"

Kowalski managed a gesture that was close enough to a thumbs up and slurred an affirmative. By the time they got back to the house he was fading in and out of consciousness and Vecchio had to half-drag, half-carry him up the stairs.

"Ray!" Frannie exlaimed when she saw them. "Oh my god, what happened?"

"'s not my fault," Kowalski said.

"You, shut up," Vecchio told him. "And you-"

"I know, I know, scram." She gave him a look -- an unsettling look that said she knew something, or at least thought she did -- and turned to walk away, calling over her shoulder, "But if you think I'm forgetting about this you've got another thing coming."

"Like I didn't know that," he muttered.

"She's really mad," Kowalski said.

"What? Nah, she's not mad. She's just... Frannie. She's gonna tear you a new one tomorrow though." He pushed Kowalski onto the bed and set about getting his shoes off. "Can't say I blame her, either."

"'s not my fault," Kowalski repeated.

"Sure, whatever you say."

"'s _not_. It's all... all Stella's fault."

Vecchio glanced up at him sympathetically, dimly recalling having read that this would have been their anniversary. Made sense that the guy would have drunk himself stupid. It's no excuse, but still.

Suddenly he found Kowalski's face a lot closer to his than it had been a second before. Like, close enough that their noses were touching. Before he could say anything, Kowalski breached the remaining gap and kissed the corner of his mouth clumsily, then beamed at him as if he'd accomplished something monumentally important.

"Jesus, Kowalski," he breathed. "Whadda you doing?"

"Your eyes," Kowalski said after a minute. "They're very... green."

Vecchio huffed a slightly forced laugh and pushed him back gently. "Yeah, well, the greenness of my eyes isn't an excuse for getting all up close and personal, okay?"

Kowalski blinked at him confusedly. "'s already personal," he muttered, flopping back on the bed, asleep.

Vecchio stared at him a bit longer, then fixed the blankets around him as best as he could and slipped out. He almost went back to leave an asprin on the nightstand, but he was already unsettled by the whole evening, Kowalski was an adult, he could deal with his own hangover.

 

Kowalski's nightmares came back, infrequent but not uncommon, and it was inevitable that one day he'd wake up while Vecchio was trying to leave.

His grip tightened, all his limbs wrapped around Vecchio's like an octopus. Vecchio froze.

"Don't go," Kowalski mumbled, voice rough and sleepy, and yeah, that was tempting in a way he hadn't even noticed before, but he was still going to resist. Up until Kowalski nuzzled his neck in a way that made him go completely boneless and let out an involuntary gasp.

"Huh," Kowalski said, looking up at him curiously.

"Kowalski," he said, and he was going to put a stop to this, he was going to get up and leave, really, but the words that actually left his mouth were, "You still pretending I'm Fraser?"

"No," he said after a minute, in this soft, awed voice like maybe he hadn't even known it himself until he'd said it out loud.

"Okay," Vecchio said gruffly, ignoring the thing in his chest that gave a little at the admission.

He stayed.

 

That in itself probably wouldn't have been enough to tip the balance, but then Kowalski gave him a blowjob during a stake out. Twice.

"This can't happen again," Vecchio said.

"I know."

"We can't keep doing this."

"I _know._ "

He nodded like he'd made a decision, even though he didn't know what it was until it came out of his mouth. "We gotta either knock it off or do it right, then."

"What, you mean...?" He made a rude gesture. "I don't see how that's gonna help."

"No!" he said loudly. "No, I mean like, uh, like you and Fraser were gonna do. You know, with the, uh..." He trailed off.

"Domestic stuff," Kowalski said, and it sounded like an echo even though Vecchio hadn't said it yet. He nodded. "Wow. Wow, that's just... that's just weird."

"You're telling me." He shook his head. "Unlike you, I never even thought about something like this before."

"This being..."

"This being this weird-ass thing going on with us."

"Not even with Fraser?"

That's familiar footing, at least. "Nah. It was all... abstract or something." He waved his hands in a complicated, Italian way and Kowalski's eyes tracked the movement.

"Okay," Kowalski said. "Okay, so what are we gonna do?"

"I wish I knew." He rested his forehead against the cool glass of the car window. "Think we can stop?"

"I-" He stopped. "No. No, I don't think - I don't know about you but-"

"Okay," he interrupted. "I got no idea how it's gonna work, but it can't be worse than this."

Kowalski was quiet for a minute. "We'll figure it out."

 

They spent the rest of the day avoiding each other, looking spooked if they even met each others eyes across the station.   
Frannie grabbed him after about half a day of that and dragged him into the supply room.

"Okay, what's up with you and Kowalski?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he said, knowing it wouldn't fly. Not with Frannie.

"Come on, Ray, give me a little bit of credit for having eyes wouldja?" She put her hands on her hips. "You think I haven't seen the weird looks you've been giving each other? Something's going on with you two."

"Even if there were, it wouldn't be any of your business."

"Like it wasn't your business whether I slept with Fraser or not?"

"That's not even close to the same situation."

She gave him a look. "Are you sure? Cause it looks pretty close to me." Before he could open his mouth, she added, "If you don't tell me, I'll just have to go ask him, you know."

He groaned. Kowalski wouldn't last two seconds against an all-out Frannie assault, two years of undercover or no.  
"Not now, okay, Frannie? I'll tell you, but you gotta let me sort it all out in my head first."

She eyed him narrowly. "Fine."

 

It was another two days before they ended up talking about it again. Well, okay, before a case forced them back into proximity. The residual awkwardness of that first conversation had lead to them avoiding each other almost to the point of ridiculousness.

So Vecchio ended up with a bump on the head and no memory of the preceding fight. Last thing he knew they'd been walking into an empty warehouse to meet a snitch, then Kowalski was slapping him back awake.

"What happened?" he asked, grabbing Kowalski's hand to prevent another slap.

"We were set up." Kowalski looked at him closely. "You okay?"

"Fine." He stood up, nearly knocking Kowalski over. "Set up how?"

"He knocked you out, took a shot at me, and took off."

"A _shot?_ "

"He missed." He darted forward and hugged him nervously, then jumped back and started pacing. "He can't have gone far, though, right?"

"If he's smart, he won't be anywhere near here after assaulting two cops."

"Better hope he's not smart, then."

"Hey," he said softly after watching Kowalski pace for a while. "Come here."

Kowalski went to him without thinking about it and let Vecchio fold him up in his arms. "I'm good," he said after a minute.

It took about three hours to track down and book the snitch, after which the whole weird energy had pretty much gone away.

He cornered Kowalski not long after they got home. "You backing out?"

"Only if you are."

He nodded once, quickly. "Okay then. If we're gonna do this we, uh, gotta talk to Frannie."

The look Kowalski gave him was just short of panicked. " _What?_ Why?"

"Because she's _this_ close to figuring it out for herself, if she hasn't already, and she's gonna ask."

 

"Look, if you're happy, I'm happy for you," Frannie said after the first few emotionally stunted words. "You are happy, right?"

Kowalski and Vecchio looked at each other.

"I guess."

"Sure."

Frannie rolled her eyes. "Men."

Kowalski shrugged. "What'd you expect, Frannie, roses and poetry? It's not like it's any of your business, anyway."

"Well, he's my brother, and you're sort of like my brother-"

"Don't say that! You're making it worse!"

"I'm making it my business." She poked Kowalski in the chest. "If you hurt him, I'll break your kneecaps."

"Geez, Frannie."

"And that goes for you, too." She almost-glared at Vecchio; he nodded. "Good. Now, who's gonna tell Ma?"


End file.
